Spring cleaning outside was how I spent this past gorgeous Sunday afternoon! I hope you and yours were able to get out and enjoy the weekend. I love this time of year as the weather turns, the trees and flowers are getting in bloom, the birds sing and all seems right with the world. It was time to fire up the lawn mower, get out the garden hose, reset up the bird feeders and bird bath, and fly my colorful “Welcome” flag out front. In addition, I got one of those hanging flower baskets for the porch and enjoyed an afternoon of outdoor work.
I am not really a fan of mowing the yard. My house is near a big intersection in town and the traffic seems to never stop. I picture people at the stop sign with nothing better to do than watch me haul that mower around the yard! I’m sure the neighbors do as well. In my weird mind I sense a couple at the picture window having pulled up chairs to watch their neighbor struggle to get his yard mowed!
I fill the lawn mower with gas, check the oil and proceed to get it started. It did not want to start. So there’s that lovely scene, me tugging, pulling, the starter and nothing happening. I guess no neighbor or anyone else was watching as the blue smoke began to pour out of the mower! No one came to my rescue, one neighbor I have said it was burning up unused oil! (This has happened before…)
Spring clean your faith this day, this week! Throw out the problems and mistakes of the past and embrace the new. God is our God of active, life giving love and grace. As the old saying goes “there is nothing you or I can do to cause God to love us any more or any less!” This morning I heard a worship song entitled “We belong to God”. I thought of the verse in Revelation about Jesus “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end..” (21:6). The Alpha is the first word of the Greek alphabet and Omega is the last. God is the beginning of our lives, the end of our lives and everything in between! We belong to God and that’s a reason to know that any problems or difficulties we have God is with us. Every time we suffer, every time there are issues in the family, or the finances, or at work we have a God who is with us, and we belong to God!
Think of that spiritual good news as a sunny, spring day with the sun shining, the breeze blowing, the birds singing in the trees. They all belong to God as well,
Peace,
Pr. Doug
NLS Spiritual Director
Eric is our current Webmaster and works on the NLS Communications Team. Raised in Judaism, he found Christ and the New Testament at age 16 in a Southern Baptist Church. He searched many denominations for the real church, only to find the Holy Spirit is present in all of them. He's worked for One for Israel, a group of native Israeli believers who are sharing the gospel in the holy land in Hebrew and is part of the only Hebrew speaking seminary in Israel.
